Along the Cyclo Velo Track

Bannay - lavoir and waterwheel

Some people love cycling. Many whizz past us every day on the Loire Velo Trail. They've chosen a couple of weeks pounding the pedals rather than a relaxing swim or lounge on a beach sipping cocktails and good luck to them.  I'm not exactly an enthusiast although the  trail seems lovely .The scenery is beautiful, the bits we've been on are separate from the road traffic and best of all it's flat.

The cycle trail and the canal run along the same side of the Loire river. Before the advent of the canal and the railway the river was an important trading route and thus there are large and once important port cities along its banks. They are all on the opposite bank to the canal so visiting them entails crossing the wide river and flood plain over lengthy bridges carrying heavy traffic. Given a busy road and an empty pavement I'll choose the pavement but this isn't usually possible over a bridge. The pedestrian walkways are too narrow for a wobbler like myself and besides they usually carry people on foot. So, usually, I'll push my bike across pretending I've just stopped to take in the view.

As mentioned in a previous post we were held up for 3 days by a lock 'en panne' (broken down). The only place to tie up and wait was below what we thought was a railway bridge and on the Sunday afternoon we did , in fact hear what we assumed was the rumbling of the occasional train. I did think at the time it was going rather slower than the usual high speed of a French train but as we were more concerned about what was going on at the lock we didn't pay much attention.

On a subsequent unsuccessful search in the nearby village for a baker we discovered a railway track crossing the road. It was completely unprotected which, for a working line, is unheard of but what was more unusual was the sign saying that that the train had to stop at the road, the passengers dismount and push!!

So we followed the rusty track and it eventually led us through high hedges to this. More rust held together by a million rivets.
Almost post apocalyptic.

A Loire crossing devoid of trucks, cars, cyclists or pedestrians. No trains either. The brdge is almost 900m long and once carried the railway line from Bourges to  Toul. Now it is a privately run cyclo velo rail which runs at weekends. And if, like me, you've never heard of a cyclo velo this is not one.

But this is.

 Apparently they are all over France. At weekends.

Some info on the bridge.